Woody Allen
by Coral542383
Summary: Going after a lead to solve a case and stop a murderer, a surprising revelation will be just what they need and the thing they were least expecting to happen.


Woody Allen

Jesse Ross, Edwin Farmer, Gene Bradley, Wade Barnett, Santiago Stewart and Quincy Tanner.

All were teenagers and outcasts in one way or another, and now they were all dead.

Denver PD called them in on the case after the 5th murder and they quickly established a profile: a white male between the ages of 20 and 35, tall, seemingly unthreatening but extremely violent, insecure and socially awkward with access to a .45 who's left leg has been injured before the 1st murder, probably because of an unreported or untreated assault.

The 6th victim was discovered the morning after they released the profile to the public, this time in the woods of City Park with 6 bullets littering the torso instead of in an alley with a single bullet to the back of the head like it had been with all the others.

"That's not the only thing that changed," Officer Donald Conway, one of the first responders, informed them "We found an old newspaper article stuffed in the victim's throat."

The article was published in The Denver Post and dated back to October 17th, 1,995. It detailed how Denver PD failed to find the attacker of a 15 year old teenager who in an attempt to defend himself from his attacker had broken the attacker's leg. The actual case file was later found in one of Denver Police Department's storage rooms and revealed the teenager to be nature lover Allen Griffin who was now 31 years old and living in the woods of Bear Creek Lake Regional Park, southwest of Lakewood and east of Englewood.

All of the team members then went to the park and asked the park rangers where Griffin's cabin was and were all surprised to learn that he didn't live in a cabin, but in the woods themselves. The park rangers also said that they weren't looking for his dead body because every Wednesday morning he went to work as a gardener-to-hire and every Wednesday evening he came back with enough food for a week. After they told them that Griffin never talked to anyone and apparently had a secret hideout which allowed him to ignore every attempt at communication, the park rangers pointed to the general direction he went every Wednesday evening.

Out of any other options as it was Friday, they all went a mile and a half in said direction with 30 feet separating them from one another and stopped. Each agent then took his turn at trying to get Griffin to get out and talk to them.

Hotch tried to reassure him that they were going to make sure that he was safe from the hands of the murderer.

Rossi tried to guilt him into talking to them, asking him if he would be able to sleep at night knowing he could have helped stop the killings.

Seaver tried to tell him that she knew what it's like to be an outcast and that sometimes, she wanted to hide from everyone too.

Morgan tried to make him understand their point of view, and that it was time to get over his fears.

After all their attempts failed, all eyes turned to Reid who up till this point kept quiet, thinking over what he wanted to say. About half a minute after Morgan stopped talking, Reid started.

"Hello, Mr. Griffin. My name is Dr. Spencer Reid and I work for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. When I was about four my mom started showing signs of schizophrenia. My father tried to take care of her himself but she got worse every day. He left when I was ten and didn't try to make contact. By then I was in the ninth grade. You'd think that teenagers that age would see me as a kid and either coddle me or ignore me. They did see me as a kid, and that gave them the perfect excuse to bully me. I came back home with bruises almost every day. If it rained I came back covered in mud."

He paused for a few seconds, sighed and continued "One day in the year I graduated – I was twelve – Harper Hillman came up to me and told me that Alexa Lisbon wanted to meet me behind the field house. Alexa Lisbon was easily the prettiest girl in school."

He blew a sort of half laugh and looked at his feet, then looked back up at the woods ahead of him and continued his story "She was there like Harper said; so was the entire football team." he looked over at Morgan who had a look on his face that said _It's okay, I got your back_ and took a deep breath before he moved his eyes back to the woods and continued once more "They stripped me naked and tied me to a goal post. So many kids were there, just watching. I begged them to stop. I told them that I wouldn't tell anyone if they let me go. Finally, everyone got bored and left. It was around midnight when I finally got home." he took another deep breath "My mom was having one of her episodes so she didn't even realize I was late."

He paused again, took another deep breath and continued with his voice steadier this time "I didn't tell anyone for fifteen years. I thought no one would be able to understand what I went through, that no one would ever understand me. Three years ago, on a case like this one, I told Agent Morgan."

Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed, body language stating 'confident' and voice steadier and stronger "I told him because he made me realize that the reason no one could ever understand me was because I didn't try to let anyone in. I was so scared of rejection that I rejected everyone around me."

He became angrier "You're making the same mistake I did; there are people who try to understand you but all you do is ignoring them. I know that you're thinking that no one will ever be able to understand you. Believe me, I know what that's like but you know what? Almost any other person in your place would jump at the opportunity to be understood. There are millions of people out there who try to make people understand them. While I don't know how many of them succeed, I do know that the number of successes increases every day. I'm telling you today on behalf of all the misunderstood that what you're doing right now, denying any opportunity given to you to be understood while some have to make their own opportunities," he took a deep breath and then shouted angrily at the woods "Is insulting!"

A few minutes had passed with everyone keeping silent, half-staring at Reid in surprise and half-hoping he managed to get through to Griffin. All eyes averted at the sound of rustling leaves as an average looking man stepped forward into their line of sight.

"My name is Allen Griffin," the man said looking straight at Reid "Please tell me how I can help."

The End


End file.
